New stats from Nielsen Online show that by the end of 2008, social networking had overtaken email in terms of worldwide reach. According to the study, 66.8% of Internet users across the globe accessed “member communities” last year, compared to 65.1% for email. The most popular online activities remain search and Web portals (with around 85% reach) and the websites of software manufacturers. The far-reaching study also explored a number of other trends within the social networking space. In 2008, users spent 63% more time on member communities than they did in the previous year. However, within member communities, Facebook

saw growth of 566% in time spent on it by users worldwide. As has been reported elsewhere, Facebook’s fastest growth demographic is older users – the social network tacked on 12.4 million people between ages 35-49 in 2008 according to Nielsen.

Some other key findings from the report:

- Globally, Facebook reaches 29.9% of global Internet users, versus 22.4% for MySpace

- MySpace remains the most profitable social network, generating an estimated $1 billion in revenue versus $300 million for Facebook in 2008.

- Facebook is the top social network in all countries except Germany, Brazil, and Japan (Nielsen still has MySpace as tops in US in the report, but as of January ’09, that had changed).

- On Twitter, CNN, The New York Times, and BBC have the greatest reach among mainstream media companies as of late February.

Overall, most of these trends aren’t surprising if you’ve been following the space, but nonetheless, tie some numbers to them. Most impressive is the rise of Facebook, who is outpacing the growth of the social networking space on the whole by nearly tenfold.

Social networking and blogging have become more popular than sending email, according to a new report from Nielsen. More than two-thirds (67%) of the global online population now goes online to visit social networks and blogs. “Social networking has become a fundamental part of the global online experience,” says John Burbank, CEO of Nielsen Online.

“While two-thirds of the global online population already accesses member community sites, their vigorous adoption and the migration of time show no signs of slowing. Social networking will continue to alter not just the global online landscape, but the consumer experience at large. This study explains why.” The increasing reach of “Member Community” Web sites across 2008.Facebook is the most popular social network and is visited monthly by three in every 10 people online in the nine markets that Nielsen tracks social networking use. Orkut in Brazil has the largest domestic online reach (70%) of any social network in these markets. One in every 11 minutes online worldwide is accounted for by social networking and blogging sites.

The social network and blogging audience is becoming more diverse in terms of age. The biggest increase in visitors during 2008 to “Member Community” Web sites globally came from the 35-49 year old age group (+11.3 million).

Mobile is playing an increasingly important role in social networking. UK mobile users have the greatest tendency to visit a social network through their handset, with 23 percent doing so, compared to 19 percent in the U.S. These numbers are a significant increase over last year- up 249 percent in the UK and 156 percent in the U.S.

A recent survey of marketing professionals conducted on behalf of PRWeek and Manning Selvage & Lee by research firm Millward Brown indicates that 68 percent of marketers expect their advertising budgets to stay the same or decrease in the coming year although, 75 percent of those same marketers say they expect to spend more money on digital marketing campaigns.

Marketing services firm Epsilon in August released a survey that revealed 59 percent of senior marketing executives expect to decrease their traditional marketing budgets, while 63 percent plan to increase the budget for interactive and digital marketing programs.

To compliment these initiatives, Forrester Research concluded that e-mail marketing would more than likely increase during a recession, while advertising dollars would go  toward online media, that is tracked such as search marketing. Forrester then concluded that interactive social applications such as online communities, social networking sites and word-of-mouth marketing prove worthwhile because they depend not on a diminishing ad budget, but a human factor: potential customers. Social media cost is not dictated on a cpc or cpm bid and can reach a large audience on a fairly small budget.

Whether we are headed towards a recession,one thing seems very clear: interactive and digital marketing—social media marketing
strategies in particular—will play a part in how your brand survives and through rough waters.